DeathStar 75GXP
IBM has finally admitted they’re an evil empire bent on destroying data around the world.
The Yellow Wood
The other day I ‘bumped into’ a friend of mine from high school that I hadn’t talked to in years. By ‘bumped into’ I mean I happened to catch him online at the same time I was online and paying attention to my buddy list. It’s somewhat shocking to look at where I am now as compared to where my high school friends are. In just a few short years we’ve walked down completely different paths. Christian is married, has two kids, and works at the Sheriff’s office. I don’t know any details because he’s really busy with his two kids and doesn’t ever have time to catch up. Andy is married and now has a son. I haven’t been able to get in contact with him ever since he told me that. Bruce went back to New York and has a degree in Psychology. Not too sure what he’s up to these days. Ravin gave up on this country and moved back to Trinidad with his family.
It’s not that long a period of time, five years, but our lives are so different now. Even in the last couple years there’s been a lot of change. The people I saw just about every day for four years are now either graduated or graduating; each heading in a different direction towards a completely different life. Each day that goes by we make choices that make our paths diverge even more. It makes me wonder how different things will be five years from now. Where will everyone be? Where will I be? By then we’ll all be nearing age thirty. How many of us will be married and how many still unmarried? Who will have kids, and how many? Will we all continue on our winding twisting paths through the forest or will some of us find a comfortable clearing and settle down? Will our paths meet again or will we lose touch?
The future looms ahead, a twisting vortex of decisions, answers, and new questions. Each day it draws closer and we have no choice but to enter it. What will we find in there? What dreams and nightmares lie in store for us beyond the event horizon?
Deleting Posts
You know, you shouldn’t delete your posts.
Why not?
Good or bad your blog entries document your life and give you a window into your past. Also, if you’d deleted this post before I got to read it, the highlight of my day today would’ve been finding another bottle of lemonade in the fridge.
So I should keep my posts up for your amusement?
No, I’m just saying there’s a Butterfly Effect. For all you know your posts will prevent WWIII. You wouldn’t want the death of millions looming over your head, now, would you?
haha, right
Let’s say you delete your posts regularly. The five or ten minutes each day that Stephen spends reading your entries are now diverted to some other activities. So, in all this free time he’s able to develop a deadly biogonetic plague in lab. But then his jealous antisocial lab mate steals his invention and sells it on eBay to Canadians. We all know Canadians have been secretly resentful of American successes, they’ve just been waiting for the perfect time to strike. Canada, then unleashes this plague upon the world killing everyone. The only survivors of the human race would the two astronauts on the International Space Station. They’d be stuck trying to figure out how to produce offspring out of two sperm cells. All because you deleted your posts.
LOL! You should’ve been born Jewish!
The Search of Milwaukee’s Best
A potluck with my coworkers was organized two, maybe three weeks ago and set for Saturday at noon. Naturally, I waited to the last possible second to decide on something to bring. Around 6pm Friday night, still at work, I decided to make bratwurst for the potluck. Costco closes around 8pm so I have plenty of time. Around 7 or so I locked my workstation, turned around and grabbed my jacket, picked up my book, and exited my cube. I get to Costco around 7:30 and hurry inside.
I walked down the meat aisle skimming the packages of meat to find the large slab of bratwurst. I get to the end but don’t see it, so I backtrack going a little slower this time. Still don’t see it. I walk around the corner, but all I could find was five hundred count cases of oranges and grapefruit. A little bit further on I see the ten-pound bags of lettuce. Walking back, I passed by the fifty-packs of kiwi and thirty-packs of bananas. Back down the meat aisle I go, and back again. Still, I don’t see any sign of bratwurst. Annoyed now, I start walking up and down every aisle in the refrigerated section. Finally, I get to the last row and I see packages of sausage links at the end of the row, the holy grail. I rush to the end in case someone in need of a few hundred bratwursts might get there before me. I got there and looked down at the magnificent plastic-sealed packages of juicy tender reddish links of Italian Sausage. Godammit, where are the brats?
I flipped through all the packages to see if the brats might be hidden underneath. I looked down the aisle of meats on the far wall thinking maybe I just missed it. Nah, I couldn’t have missed it, I walked down there so many times already. I settled with getting Italian sausage since there’s no guarantee I’d be able to find it anywhere else and, as the announcer said, Costco would be closed in a few minutes.
I drop two packages in my cart, turn around, and make a run for the beer section to pick up a box of Milwaukee’s Best. Milwaukee’s Best is a beer that is known for one thing: It’s very cheap. I’m told it also tastes very bad, but I’ve never tried it myself. A lesser known fact is that it’s the best way to cook sausage. How is this possible if it tastes so bad? I don’t know.
I was shocked at how small the beer section was. It’s smaller than the section dedicated to wines. I walked by tall stacks of Heineken, Miller Light, Bud Light, Budweiser, Corona, and a handful of Spanish sounding names I didn’t recognize. There’s no Milwaukee’s best. I looked down the length of the warehouse, rolling onto the tips of my toes, to see if there’s another beer section I don’t know about, but didn’t see anything. Walking back through the refrigerated section I flagged an employee restocking one of the coolers. “Is that all of the beer you have?” I ask the guy, gesturing back towards the stacks of cases of beer. “I’m looking for some Milwaukee’s Best,” I explained, then added, “To cook some sausage,” for fear that he might think I actually drink it. “No man, I haven’t seen that stuff for years,” he tells me, “Maybe you should try a local liquor store; they might still carry it there.” I thank him for the information and head towards the checkout mob.
There’s a small liquor store just a mile down the road that I pass by every day to and from work. I figured that’s as good a place as any to check. Inside I’m, surprisingly, greeted by a pair of Asian men, probably the owner and his son. They’re locked inside a large glass enclosure. I assume its bullet proof. I glance up and notice it’s completely open on top. I think, “3-sec, Min bounce” as I walk up to the teller hole. Because the younger man was busy taking care of another customer, I asked the older man if they have any Milwaukee’s Best. He repeats to me with a somewhat confused look in heavily accented English something that doesn’t quite sound like Milwaukee’s Best. I repeat it a few times, but he still doesn’t understand what I’m saying. By now the younger man is finished taking care of the other customer and he looks over at him for help. He, the younger man, leads me down the row of refrigerator doors scanning for it. “I don’t think we have that, maybe you can try the Sav-On or The Market,” he says, “I think only the bigger stores still carry that.”
It didn’t make sense to me to look for it at a drug store, so I made my way to the Ranch Market, the supermarket where everyone speaks Spanish. There’s a corner right by the entrance dedicated to beer. Pushing through the turnstile, I round the corner and head into the stacks of Mexican beer. I make my way through the cases of beer scanning for boxes labeled in English. There were a few domestics, but none of Milwaukee’s Best. Disappointed, I resigned myself to returning home and trying again in the morning before the potluck.
About a block before my apartment I catch a partially lit sign “quor Be r.” One last stop, maybe this’ll be the place. The store is really small with piles of merchandise stacked everywhere. I suppose Perhaps liquor stores don’t need to worry about capacity limits like restaurants do. The register, to the right, is covered with hanging packs of beef jerky, lighters, key chains, and random trinkets. Behind the register are two scowling Indian people. Unfazed, I make my way back to the fridge and scan, again, for any sign of Milwaukee’s Best. In the far back corner of the last door on the bottom shelf partially covered by a sign for the latest deal on Bud Light, I see it. I crouch down closer to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. Sure enough, there it is in the smallest and grungiest of stores. Five minutes and $6.74 later I make it home happy to have, at last, found Milwaukee’s Best.
Tick Tick
Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick
What is that? There it is again. What’s it coming from? Hmm, it’s gone now. Oh no, there it is again. Ok, this is fine, just ignore it, go back to reading.
Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick
No, I can’t concentrate with that ticking. Why won’t it stop? It’s driving me nuts. I need to read but I can’t concentrate with that racket. Where is it coming from? What if i move my chair back? No. Forward? Yeah, there it is. It’s somewhere in front. How about to the left? Nope. Oh, it’s gone again. Ok, back to reading.
Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick
Dammit, there it is again. Just ignore it. If I ignore it maybe it’ll go away. Just read, concentrate on the words in the book.
“We have…”
Tick-Tick-Tick
“…now defined the…”
Tick-Tick-Tick
“…complete client-side…”
Tick-Tick-Tick
I can’t do this. This is driving me nuts. Fine, you win, I’m going somewhere else.
Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick
I sketch
After reading the article I linked yesterday, I put some more thought into my programming habits. How do I fit into the model of the Computer Science field presented? I’m definately not the Scientist/Mathematician. It’s too impractical. I suppose being an Enginere would be my ‘day job.’ It’s not something that I find very exciting but I get to work with something I enjoy and it pays the bills.
So that leaves the final choice, hacker/painter. I think this is a very good fit for me. I spend a lot of my time ’sketching.’ Most of my work at HHP was sketching. My site is a huge sketch pad with PHP as my pencil. I didn’t even realize how much I ’sketch’ until that article brought it to my attention. I looked down, today, at my clipboard of notes and scribblings for a better PHP blog engine and realized it bears a striking resemblence to the EJB architecture I’ve been reading about at work. In fact, my sudden itch to ‘make’ stuff started soon after I started reading all of these books for work. Hopefully I’ll be able to process enough through my sketching to actually do some work at work.
